Echoes in Eternity
by Ammaren
Summary: "Brothers, what we do now echoes in eternity." A meeting down the corridors of time, echoing. One of them must die.


**Echoes In Eternity**

Summary: "Brothers, what we do now echoes in eternity." A meeting down the corridors of time, echoing. One of them must die.

* * *

His footsteps echo down the hallways of the Star Forge. Perhaps they do not echo, not quite. Perhaps they echo in my visions, in the visions of bright blue blades and cyan-tinged death that the Force sends me.

_Death_, the Force whispers. Doorways open and close, and all of them lead here. If the future is in motion, it moves with the cat-light tread of the one who approaches me.

It is inevitable. Do you see? It must happen. The Force will guide both of us here, and face to face for the first time in months…we shall see.

* * *

There is so much that is uncertain. And yet…I find myself _believing_.

He is a broken fool, he who was my friend, he who was my Master. Revan was never one for point-work, and this diminished version of him lacks Revan's vast experience in lightsaber combat. We exchange blows, lightsabers hissing and crackling as they meet.

There is much here that is familiar. The Force is cool and distant, assessing us. Holding its breath. The world coalesces, the galaxy shrinks in to just the two of us, battling furiously. This new Revan is still passionate, lightsaber arcing out to bat aside the series of slashes I rain down on him.

He is not ready.

My lightsaber slips and takes him through the throat, point-first.

I twist it about, and look into his eyes as I kill him.

I owe him that much.

* * *

His footsteps echo down the hallways of the Star Forge. Perhaps they do not echo, not quite. Perhaps they echo in my visions, in the visions of bright blue blades and cyan-tinged death that the Force sends me.

_Death_, the Force whispers. Doorways open and close, and all of them lead here. If the future is in motion, it moves with the cat-light tread of the one who approaches me.

It is inevitable. Do you see? It must happen. The Force will guide both of us here, and face to face for the first time in months…we shall see.

* * *

He fights furiously. Valiantly. There is plenty of heart in him, plenty of fight left. He advances, pushing me backwards. The Force is flowing through both of us, roaring in our veins, and his face is locked in a rictus of battle-fury, of concentration so intense that we fight in perfect silence, except where our blades meet.

I would smile, if I still had lips.

He presses forward; I move backwards. They are simultaneous, our decisions. He thinks he is pushing me back; he thinks he has won the battle advantage. I backpedal, I allow him the ground he thinks he has won. We battle all the way back and up the steps. His mouth locks in an almost-smirk as he pushes me further, but the Force guides me up the treacherous steps, and crimson slips the blaze of blue around me, letting his attacks pass harmlessly.

His swings are too wide; his follow-throughs too pronounced. They were enough to mean death for Bandon. They are not enough for me; not by far. I am considered one of the – I was one of the best duelists among the Jedi, and I still am.

Once, I was nothing compared to Revan. But Revan has been broken, his identity shattered, his memories torn apart and rifled through. There is little left of the man we would have followed through brimstone and blaster fire – that we _followed_ through the hells of war.

There are traces, yes. His body remembers what his mind does not; he slips aside to deftly parry blows that I rain on him. He parries them two-handed and ripostes. These are shadows of the old Revan surfacing, guiding him through movements he must surely not remember, not consciously.

They are not enough.

I block his blow, twist aside, and thrust. My lightsaber burns through his chest. For a moment, we are frozen; he stands there, blinking in surprise.

_Sizzle_. I smell flesh burning. Roughly, I tear my blade free. I watch him die. I watch until pale blue eyes drift shut, faintly-surprised.

I owe him that much.

* * *

He must pay for each inch in pain.

My lightsaber slices through his throat, slashes through his leg and then takes him in the chest, thrusts at the vulnerable point in the armpit, burns through his eyes into his brain. I cut him down again and again; there is no end to this.

He rises again and again like a revenant.

The few slices he lands on me vanish; I am standing again, restored, at the doorway of the Star Forge, waiting. Listening for my doom, my destiny: the footfall in the corridor that signals Revan's arrival.

How many times have I killed him now, this ghost, this wraith?

The footsteps stop. I do not need my ears to hear the whispers of the Force still, preserving this moment as the Force holds its breath, waiting. I gather the Force to me. We will fight again; we will bring the weight of the universe, enough power to reshape the galaxy into this room, concentrated in a single duel.

The winner will shape the destiny of the galaxy forever.

I hear the snap-hiss of his lightsaber igniting, and I spring to meet it.

* * *

Revan is growing stronger.

So much about this is uncertain, and yet I believe. I do.

His movements are swift and fluid and _sure_. Our lightsabers weave a deadly pattern of light around us, the Force moving us. Check. Parry. Block. Threat. Opportunity. He tries a Shien reversal, cutting for my ribs. I check him, and shove him off-balance with the Force. This used to be Revan's signature move. Strange, how our positions have reversed.

He is growing stronger, faster, more certain.

There is only one way this can end, I know. I know because I am no longer Malak, no longer Alek. I am Revan, Rian Tamir, the pulse of the blood in our veins and more. It is not us any more who are dueling fiercely in the Star Forge; the Force itself sweeps through us both, Light and Dark, and it is moving and it is we who are being moved, pieces in some greater pattern.

There is only one way this can end.

I hesitate.

My choice.

Revan has always been swift to take advantage of opportunities. I feel his lightsaber burn through my lungs as his arm snaps forward in the decisive lunge; I feel the sharp _shock_ as the air leaves me. I am breathless with the sharp pain and my flesh is burning.

I choke; I cough. There is blood on my lips. My blood.

The world is going grey at the edges. Revan is speaking; I am answering him. The words don't matter; they have been uttered long before, determined somewhere and none of us will have a choice in what is being said. I want to apologise. I want to know if any of the old Revan still lives.

I want to believe that there is a place for us, we fallen Jedi, we Sith. That wherever that is, Revan will be waiting. Just the two of us, unstoppable.

There is only one way this can end. The universe will not turn on itself; time will not curl backwards like a spool of tape and unfurl again for a single Sith Lord. For a fallen Jedi who is nothing, who will go on into the emptiness.

Time will not reverse itself for the words I want to hear from Revan.

The world is going grey at the edges.

I think about how Revan has been growing stronger as we duel through the myriads of – pasts? Presents? It does not matter. They are like dreams now; indistinct, fading. Possibilities of worlds that never were. I touch some of them; I don't know if I am a Jedi in any of them. I don't know if there are any possible worlds that would allow me to live.

It doesn't matter. This Revan; there is something left in him of the old. The same fire. He has the strength of his beliefs. They make him unstoppable. Indomitable.

I close my eyes, and slip away into the void.

I am nothing.

But we are nothing, the Jedi say. We are luminous beings. This is crude matter. And as I slip away, if the dying hope of a former Jedi _can_ matter, then I hope that the spark of the old Revan is out there in the void, waiting.

Alek and Revan.

Together, we are invincible. We are legend.


End file.
